Serbian Albanians Rally Behind Census Boycott

Bujanovac assembly | Photo by FoNet

Most ethnic Albanians in South Serbia seem to have heeded the decision of their regional leaders to boycott the national census held between October 1 and 15.

While local Albanian politicians say they are boycotting the head count in protest against their community’s dismal economic position and endangered rights, Belgrade accuses them of obstructing the census for political reasons and of undermining threatening stability in this sensitive border region, close to Kosovo and Macedonia.

Boban Pavlovic, president of the census commission in Bujanovac, said that by October 10 only about a hundred Albanians in the mainly ethnic Albanian municipality of 43,000 had taken part, despite penalties of up to 500 euro for those failing to respond.

‘The census-takers did not even enter villages populated solely by Albanians,” he told Balkan Insight, adding that the few Albanian respondents lived in the towns.

According to Serbia’s last 2002 census, Bujanovac is home to 43,302 citizens, of whom 23,681 are Albanians (54.69 per cent) and 14,782 are Serbs (34.14 per cent).

The Albanian boycott has also been observed in the overwhelmingly Albanian municipality of Presevo, just to the south, where only about 70 members of the Albanian community took part.

Dragoljub Filipovic, president of the census commission in this municipality, noted that the number was tiny given that Albanians make up 90 per cent of the population of around 30,000.

A few local Albanian leaders describe the boycott as misguided. One local politician who wanted to stay anonymous told Balkan Insight that he and his family had taken part “because the decision to boycott is a political one that may bring harm to my people.

“People don’t realise that the census is not a mere head count,” he added.

“After the census, the economic potential of the country will become known and our region will not figure in the register made available to investors who want to invest in Serbia because of this boycott”.

According to him, Albanian leaders expected support for their boycott from the international community, and when support did not come they felt it was too late to revoke their decision.

“No party opposed the boycott out of fear of the reaction of voters in the elections next year, as that party and its leader would be proclaimed traitors to the national interest,” he said.

Meanwhile most locals feel that they have achieved something. Presevo resident Aliu Veseli said he did not want “the census or the census-takers in my home.

“When Serbia treats us like all the other citizens, I will change my attitude,” Veseli said.

Vincent Degert, head of the EU delegation in Belgrade, made it clear that Europe did not look with sympathy on boycotts. The count was being carried out according to EU standards, and “there is not a single objective reason for a boycott”, he said.

“Special attention in the whole census procedure was dedicated to national minorities,” Degert added in Belgrade, just before signing a contract for the EU donation of 20 million euros, which will cover 49 per cent of the total cost of the count.

Milan Markovic, head of the government’s Coordination Body for Southern Serbia, a body set up to liaise between local and central government, said the boycott was a politically motivated and retrograde step.

“Boycotting the census will most harm the people of southern Serbia and prevent the resolution of the problems that all national communities face,” he said.

Markovic, who is also minister for local government, claimed that the decision to boycott the count was made in Pristina, in Kosovo, not in Presevo or Bujanovac.

The decision to boycott the census was made on September 3 at an assembly in Presevo of local leaders from Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja – a municipality in which Albanians comprise 26 per cent of the 11,000 population.

Albanians are not the only community boycotting the census in Serbia. Some Bosniak [Muslim] leaders in the mainly Bosniak Sandzak region of southwest Serbia have also urged locals to ignore the count, though far fewer appear to have responded there.

One factor behind the boycott, according to ethnic Albanian leaders, is the fact that the census forms were not printed in Latin letters but only in Cyrillic, although the Statistical Office printed multilingual instructions for citizens and census takers in all languages used by ethnic minorities.

However, the main reason quoted by those attending the gathering of Albanians in Presevo was the state’s refusal to register their compatriots who were born in South Serbia but who now live in Kosovo or further abroad.

Riza Halimi, the only Albanian MP in Serbia’s parliament, who has called these people “invisible Albanians”, said a boycott was the only appropriate reaction.

“In its decision not to register our citizens who live abroad, the state wants to present a false situation about the size of the population in South Serbia,” Halimi said.

“That is why our people reacted in a politically mature way and boycotted the census,” added the leader of the Party for Democratic Action, the strongest ethnic Albanian party in the region.

Halimi said the boycott was a wake-up call to Belgrade and the world. “We are reminding the government that problems cannot be solved by force, with the police and army, like they were during the rule of [former Serbian leader] Slobodan Milosevic.”

He said the boycott sent a similar message to international community. “Europe and the world must think twice about this message,” Halimi said.

Jonuz Musliu, a deputy in the local assembly in Bujanovac, agreed. The boycott was a normal response to “the unbearably bad conditions of the Albanian national minority in Serbia”, he said.

“With this boycott we again assure Brussels and Washington that Belgrade is not capable of being a factor that can understand and resolve the problems of Albanians,” Musliu, head of the Movement for the Democratic Progress, said.

According to the 2002 census, held a year after the end of an armed conflict in South Serbia between the security forces and Albanian insurgents gathered in the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, a total of 57,595 Albanians live in the region alongside 24,929 Serbs and 4,297 Roma.

But it is not clear whether the census would have recorded a similar number for any of the main communities today. Many people have emigrated.

Goran, a Serb from Bujanovac with a university diploma and a well-paid job, said the Albanians were predictably showing disrespect for the Serbian state.

“Albanians do not want to take part in any action organised by the state, except for local elections, because they care only about being in power,” he said.

“The only time that the state is acceptable to Albanians is when they are supposed to get something from it, like a pension or welfare,” agreed Milan, the owner of a local fast food restaurant.

“When you need to do an important job like the census, then the state is not acceptable,” he added.

But local Albanians said they did not feel the state took much notice of them most of the time.

“There are around 3,000 people here under 30 without a job and all of them feel bitter both with local and state authorities because of that,” Driton, aged 25, said.

Between gulps of espresso, he said no one was afraid of the 500 euro fine. “I just don’t believe they will be able to fine all the Albanian people,” he said.

Ragmi, sitting at the next table, says he has been back in Serbia for three years with a university diploma from Kosovo that Serbia refuses to recognise. Serbia has not recognised college diplomas from Kosovo since Kosovo proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008.

“Here in my hometown I can’t get a job as an economist with diploma, so why should I love this state and respond to the census it organises?” he asked.

When Xhavit, another youngster, was asked why Albanians are boycotting the census, he also replied with a question. “Is there a single reason for Albanians to respond to the state’s invitation to take part in the census?” he asked.

“This area is very economically underdeveloped, people don’t have jobs and Albanians still cannot use their national signs officially, like the flag,” Xhavit told Balkan Insight.

But with Europe looking the other way, local Serbian politicians feel confident in dismissing the boycott as a foolish stunt that will damage the whole region.

Stojanca Arsic, head of the Group of Citizens, which shares power in Bujanovac with the Albanian majority, says the boycott is mainly aimed at “raising tensions”.

He added: “The decision creates new problems not only for Albanians, but also for Serbs and Roma, because on the basis of the census results in the next ten years new parameters in many walks of life will be set, in economy, transport, education, infrastructure, culture, and sport...

“We already know now that these parameters won’t be valid,” Arsic warned.